Development Initiatives’ Executive Director, Harpinder Collacott will provide evidence to the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee (IDC) today. She will tell the committee that the UK’s Department for International Development must focus efforts on better data on poverty and resources in their contribution to the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim to drive an end to extreme poverty by 2030.

The IDC is conducting an inquiry into the implementation of the SDGs. It is examining how they should be implemented, which DFID should prioritise, and how progress will be measured.

The session will be the third oral evidence session undertaken by the Committee and will focus on the role of data in the SDG agenda. Harpinder Collacott will provide evidence alongside John Pullinger CB, UK National Statistician and Chair of the UN Statistical Commission, and Johannes Jütting, Manager of PARIS21.

Harpinder Collacott will be drawing on DI’s written evidence submission which emphasised that:

To be able to measure progress on ending poverty and ensure no one is left behind in the achievement of the SDGs, we need data to be disaggregated geographically, by age, gender, disability and income quintile across all indicators.

DFID should support the development of an accurate baseline of such disaggregated data on the poorest and most vulnerable people to measure their progress specifically.

DFID should champion the importance of financing the development of sustainable administrative data systems and investing in core statistical systems and data collection in each country.

A full version of DI’s submission to the International Development Select Committee can be downloaded here alongside a graphic overview.

The session will take place today at 10.30 on Tuesday 3 November 2015 in Committee Room 16 of the House of Commons and will also be broadcast on Parliament Live.